A great collection of seven stories, in which a narrator who seems like the same person (if under varied guises--none of whom smoke!) tells of his encounters against those who buy into the system of secularism, deceit, and denial of the ethical. Whether witnessing an old man watching his wife die in an impersonal hospital, mulling over a fellow worker who claims to have seen a Marian apparition, selling carp to Christmas shoppers, helping a neighbor's child who has literally dropped into his apartment, meeting an old flame returned from affluent exile, listening to a professor who sees phallic symbols rearing rampant in the urban landscape, or boating with religious fanatics, Klima deftly captures the flow of moments that accentuate the survival of the sensitive and the idealistic holdouts who refuse to give in to the system. Even the rants he describes avoid stereotype, and the subtle criticism of the dissident permeates these vignettes in a well-crafted, undogmatic, and moving manner. Although George Theiner (not as photographer but as translator) gives Klima's voice a bit too much of a working-class British inflection, the English version succeeds in its colloquial, unforced fluency. This is what post-1968 Prague must have been like, you think. Far from the Charles Bridge and the Stare Mesto. Grim suburbs, bulldozed fields, damp mattresses, endless queues. Worth remembering today, and to learn from how the Stalinist experiment warped all those under its control.

Hats Off to Klima, this is a wonderful book - satire at the highest level. I am really surprised that Klima had the guts to write this is a communist Czeck (then communist). I do not remember anybody other than Capek who was as brilliant. The translation by George Theiner is also great. Though there are seven stories, one for each day of the week but I promise you will finish it in a couple of days. He brings up the dark side but not in a gloomy way but rather in hilarious fashion mixed with sarcasm which definitely deserves all praises. I will definitely recommend this book as a must buy.

First of all, I can't recomment Mr. Klima's works highly enough. "My merry mornings" is the first one I came across, and I have since read most of his other (translated) works. Most strongly appealing are his wry understanding of the characters he draws; his ability to mine the emotional depths of even day-to-day situations; and his almost understated depiction of life in the shadow of an east bloc regime.

This is the second book in a two-volume set. Volume IIIA (608 pages) deals primarily with system-related issues. The second volume, IIIB (515 pages) delves into greater detail regarding the design and performance of critical components used in optical fiber telecommunications.

Like volume IIIA, volume IIIB consists of chapters written by different authors. Although many of the chapter authors come from Lucent and/or Bell Labs, they do a good job of keeping the book at an academic level that is largely devoid of excess or offensive commercialism. This is a first-rate book that needs to be read and understood by anyone seriously engaged in engineering activities related to optical fiber telecommunications.

Each chapter is written in what is an essentially self-contained manner (though many chapters make reference from time to time to other chapters in either of the two volumes - a welcome thing as it brings continuity to the two-volume set). After a nice overview by Kaminow, volume IIIB dives right into what is arguably the single most important optical component to be developed for telecommunications in the 90's: the erbium-doped fiber amplifier. As with most chapters, chapter 2 does not overwhelm the reader with long mathematical derivations. Instead, it places at the engineer's disposal the relevant mathematical equations necessary for important analysis, as well as a wealth of references at the end of the chapter that facilitate further reading and the most quantitative analysis. This chapter covers all the important features of amplifier design, from gain to saturation, noise figure, coupling loss, polarization effects, pumping schemes, components, and various ways in which the amplifier may be used (in-line amplifier, power amplifier, etc.).

Chapter three covers transmitter and receiver design for amplified lightwave systems. The material in this chapter is high level. Topics include things like extinction ratio, rise/fall time, chirp, mode partitioning, and polarization mode dispersion. The emphasis is on how specific attributes of the transmitter and receiver interact with other components in the transmission system to affect overall system performance. Thus, the chapter not only discusses what laser chirp is, what causes it, and how to reduce it, it also delves into the system implications of chirp and describes why it is bad, and how to determine how much you can tolerate.

Chapters four, five, and six are something of a trilogy. Chapter four introduces the idea of laser sources in general for amplified and WDM lightwave systems. Chapter 5 continues the subject by describing advances in semiconductor laser growth and fabrication technology. Chapter 6 goes into more specific detail regarding vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. Of these three chapters, chapter four is the most generic, and (at least for me) by far the easiest to follow. Chapter four covers subjects like direct modulation of DFB lasers, external modulation, integration of modulator and laser, making DFB lasers with discrete and stable wavelengths for WDM systems, fiber-based lasers using fiber-Bragg gratings (FBGs), tunable lasers, and a smattering on waveguide gratings and DFB array WDM sources.

While chapter 4 was easy for me to follow, I found chapters 5 and 6 rather difficult. Both these chapters are very well written, and the authors are clearly quite expert in their fields. The material, however, is sufficiently specific to the details of design that I found myself lacking much of the prerequisite information and knowledge expected by the authors. I think that chapters 5 and 6 will be of most use to people who actually work in or very closely with semiconductor laser growth technology and/or vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. I did come away knowing lots more about these technologies than I did going into the chapters (things like how and why lattice strain is used in the design of semiconductor lasers, for example) but a more basic introduction would have helpful to me.

Chapter 7 put me back into more familiar territory with discussions about optical fiber components and devices. Topics include fiber dispersion compensators, fiber gratings, gratings in planar waveguides, and high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers. This chapter tends to be at a high level, with little specific information or mathematical equations.

Chapter 8 is really quite interesting. The title is "Silicon Optical Bench Waveguide Technology." Like chapters 5 and 6, chapter 8 gets into more detail about specific design and manufacturability issues. Since I have more background in this area, though, I found the chapter at about the right level for me (it did not leave me feeling as lost as chapters 5 and 6 did). One of the most interesting developments in this chapter (for me, at least) was the section on Fourier filter multiplexers. The chapter also has a relatively good quantitative description (you will need to fill in some of the derivations yourself) of couplers as well as star couplers and waveguide grating routers.

Chapter 9 is a good discussion on lithium niobate integrated optics, covering issues of design as well as performance and specification. It also highlights their applications as switches, modulators, and polarization scramblers/controllers as well as wavelength filters. Chapter 10, the last chapter, reviews photonic switching technologies. There is some useful information about switching fabrics, along with generic information about important specifications.

Both volumes have a good index and extensive chapter references, making this one of the best general-purpose desk reference volumes I've found for engineers involved in lightwave communications systems.

Chapter 12 is worth the price alone: The authors have done a remarkable job of getting to the heart of solitions.

Optical Fiber Telecommunications III is designed for anyone engaged in engineering work related to the fiber-optics telecommunications industry. There seems to be little doubt about the revolutionary path leading to full deployment of fiber in the telecommunications backbone network, or the trends moving fiber closer to and closer to end users. Yet, while this continual deepening of fiber into the national network progresses steadily, a new revolution has overtaken photonics in the backbone: dense wavelength-division multiplexing, or DWDM. DWDM, perhaps more than any other technology, is the reason that the third edition of this seminal work is needed today. It's not too surprising, then, that most of the third edition is directly or indirectly related to design concerns related to DWDM.

This text is best described as an engineer's desk reference. The scope is large, necessitating breaking the book into two volumes. Volume III A deals mostly with system issues and concerns, delving into more esoteric component issues primarily to illustrate the wider network implications. Volume III B deals more with specific component design issues, such as sources, detectors, and erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs).

As a desk reference, there are few derivations of equations from first principles. Perhaps the closest derivation is that of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation in chapter 12 on soliton transmission. Even here, however, the derivation is sketchy at best. For the most part the book simply places the equations at the reader's disposal. I found most of the equations are explained well, and most of the chapter authors included numeric examples, charts, and graphs. This helps immensely in understanding the implications of the many equations presented throughout the text. For those interested in derivations, each chapter comes with extensive endnotes so that anyone interested in reviewing the original work can easily do so.

One problem with the text revolves around definitions of mathematical variables and constants. Though they are all defined as introduced to the reader, there is no glossary of these terms. I constantly found myself writing in the books margins little notes like "alpha is the total loss coefficient, first used in equation x on page y." Since different authors write each chapter in the book, it may not be practical to have a glossary of terms for the entire volume - usage will probably overlap. Still, it would be nice had the editors suggested that each chapter have a glossary of mathematical variables. It would make the book far more practical and useful as a desk reference. On a more positive note, however, the book does contain a detailed and useful index.

Even without derivations, the book contains a plethora of equations and charts to satisfy the needs of most quantitatively oriented engineers. It's a good introductory book for those with a modest background in optical telecommunications technology. It's also a useful book for those more familiar with the technology, but needing a handy reference source with most of the pertinent information conveniently bound between two covers. Volume A contains 15 chapters in roughly 600 pages. Volume B is slightly smaller, having 10 chapters in roughly 500 pages.

For me, the two most interesting and useful sections of the book were chapter 8, "Fiber nonlinearities and their impact on transmission systems," and chapter 12, "Solitons in high bit-rate, long-distance transmissions." Chapter 12 is probably one of the best written. Although the subject matter is among the most difficult covered in the book, L. F. Mollenauer, J.P. Gordon, and P. V. Mamyshev have done a remarkable job of explaining solitions in a quantitative, accurate, yet clear and concise manner.

The first chapter in the book, a brief overview by Ivan P. Kaminow, provides some interesting historical insights and background, but has relatively little pertinent information for the design engineer. The second chapter deals at a high level with SONET and ATM technologies, explaining the requirements that led to the development of these standards and some of their topologies such as chains and self-healing rings. Chapter 3 deals with coding and error correction in optical fiber. This chapter was interesting in its use of fundamental physics (such as quantum noise) to examine the need for coding.

The next chapters move from coding and protocol to issues in the physical layer. Chapter 6 deals with polarization effects, the origin of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and how to measure PMD. On a similar theme, chapter 7 deals with the subject of chromatic dispersion and, perhaps more importantly, the subject of dispersion compensation. One of the interesting facts about DWDM is that elimination of dispersion is no longer a design goal, as it is with single-wavelength transmission systems. In DWDM systems the designer wants just the right amount of dispersion - not too much, and not too little. There are even situations in which the dispersion map matters - in other words, you cannot always count on being able to place large bulk amounts of compensating dispersion just in front of the optical receiver. Sometimes you need to distribute it along the fiber's length.

Two chapters, 9 and 10, deal with the specific design concerns of terrestrial and undersea lightwave systems, while chapter 14 deals with the substantial concerns of analog video transmission over optical fibers. Chapter 11 deals with advances in high bit-rate transmission systems (this chapter tends to be somewhat dated, and the situation will only get worse with passing time). Chapter 13 surveys the types of fiber architectures in current and possibly future networks. Finally, Ivan P. Kaminow finishes the book with a chapter on advanced multi-access lightwave networks, which is primarily the switched DWDM network (another chapter subject to dating).

This is an extremely valuable book for anyone involved in Photonics in the telecommunications network. I highly recommend it. Whether you read it cover to cover, or simply keep it handy as a desk reference, I'm sure you will find it well worth the cover price.

I am a biologist, and found this book very intelligible and easy.

This text provided the subject of Pathology in a clear and concise way without over simpifying the subject. The color photos provided a more hands-on feel, and stressed the important points. The questions at the end of the chapter were a good review of the key points.

This text is a clear, concise guide to Pathology for those in the Health Related Fields. As a Pharmacy student, I felt that it provided me with just the right amount of depth without over-simplifying the subjects. It provided clear color photos to emphasize the important points.

I have used this book for years and find it very helpful in selecting Opera recordings on CDs. These are critics who know and care about what they write, listing the many different recordings available (as of 1993 anyway!). However,MUCH has changed in the opera-CD world since then. Just as an example, all the legendary Maria Callas "live" performances of some of her greatest roles have been "officially" released by EMI after many years available only as "bootleg" versions, with a bunch more to be released this November 5th!. This is where the book shows its age and is not an acurate representation of opera on CD circa 2002. However, the selections included and reviewed are quite impressive. Until a newly up-dated edition shows it's face, this book is the one to go with.

I have been using this book for so long that it looks really bad. I can't wait for peguin to release an updated version of this book!

I purchase an average of 6-8 complete opera CDs per annum, and find this book very valuable in their selection. These authors "know their stuff" -please let them know how much we opera buffs appreciate their book and how about an update? Lots of new recordings(not to mention singers) in the last eight years!! Please keep a good reference going....

For anyone who struggled to understand why the nephron concentrates, then dilutes, then concentrates again the urine, this book will do much to ease your pain. Since medical school I've purchased Editions 1, 3, & 5, just so that I could keep up with my interns & residents. Here's how he does it:
#1: short book, (you know how intimidating those tomes can be)
#2: lots of diagrams
#3: end-of-chapter questions (with answers & explanations)

If you want to understand the Kidney, no matter where you are in your studies or practice, I wholeheartedly recommend this text.

Renal physiology can be very difficult to truly understand, and yet an understanding of it is essential to understanding so many aspects of physiology, pathology, and pharmacology. Studying diuretics for cardio pharm is nightmarish unless you understand the physiology of the loop of Henle. Vander takes this difficult yet important subject and makes it easy to understand. The book reads extremely quickly, and the flow-charts and diagrams are amazing. I never even opened Berne & Levy for renal phys--I read Vander's book (which is no longer than B&L's renal chapters) and cruised through renal phys. I am writing this review now, a year after I took physiology, because I am now studying for the USMLE Step 1. I have not looked at Vander's book in a year, but I still remember renal phys, and reviewing it now is the easiest part of my studying (the only easy part, in fact). That is because, thanks to Vander, I actually understand renal physiology. A great book!!

For any medical student that needs a comprehensive, but easily understood explanation of the structure and function of kidneys, I highly recommend Renal Physiology by Vander. It is very well written, and covers all the basic principles that you will need to know to understand pathologies associated with the kidneys.

Anyone who has read literature knows the best and most noteworthy volumes. This is not necessarily because the work is 'well written' or conveys ideas easily to the reader, or because someone else says it's good. Good literature is the work that has a completely positive effect upon the reader. I have been reading serious literature for several years now, and A Sportsman's Notebook is quite possibly the most wonderful literary work I have yet encountered. If I'm feeling down, I crack it open, and by the time I'm done reading I feel better. If I'm feeling good, it makes me feel that much better. Turgenev's words ring true in this volume -- to me it's as sweet as candy.

This fine gem of a book typifies the sort of volume that one must be able to extract from the water-logged valise when the steamer has gone down and one finds oneself stranded on the proverbial desert island. After 30 years of rather serious reading, I still tend to think that Turgenev is one of the finest authors ever to put ink to paper. A Sportsman's Notebook is a wonderful place to start an exploration of Russian literature. Now, if I can just find my tramp steamer tickets.

This book has some of the best short fiction ever written. Hemingway said, "Tolstoy wrote the best books, BUT TURGENEV WAS THE GREATEST WRITER." And then he went on to praise the short story "A Rattle of Wheels" above all other Turgenev stories. So if Hemingway thought Turgenev the greatest writer, and "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest story he wrote, then he certainly thought "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest short story ever written (aside from his own works, of course, egomaniac that he was). And "Rattle of Wheels" is in this collection. I personally prefer "The Singers". Read this collection. You won't regret it.

Succeeding Generations takes the family business where few dare to venture: into the perilous landscape of succession - the boneyard of many a family enterprise felled by dissension, sibling rivalry, and greed. Ivan Lansberg, co-founder of the Family Firm Institute and your guide through this treacherous terrain, neatly straddles the worlds of academic rigor and real-world experience as he shows you how to pave the way for the generation to come. Case studies of well-known family businesses illustrate Lansberg's observations and bring his advice home. We from getAbstract recommend this book to anyone involved in the complex concern of family business.

Ivan Lansberg's new book is an excellent resource for anyone living through, or helping to manage, the succession process in a family business! The book is thoroughly scholarly yet practical...it is "a must read," for anyone interested in the subject. It is the best book on the subject I have read!

Ivan Lansberg is among the top thinkers in the Family Business field. In this book, drawing on his experience as a consultant, and also on his work as co-author of Generation to Generation, he sums up all there is to say about the complex family/business relationship. A must for anyone interested in the subject.

When I first read this book it gave me the inspiration to change my life for the better. Since that first read, and there has been many, my life has improved ten fold. I recomend this book to all those that need inspiration for a happy, harmonuos and healthy life. THANKS!

This book covers everything I need to support me in maintaining the new basis for my life, that I have achieved since completing the Landmark Forum and Advanced courses. I borrowed the dutch version, but am trying to buy the out of print english version. A great book!

"A delightful book bringing more light and understanding to the experience of trusting, loving, and letting go." - Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D.,author of Love Is Letting Go Of Fear Find this book listed, along with others by Ivan Hoffman at: Follow Your Heart: The Writings and Philosophy of Ivan Hoffman http://www.earthlink.net/~ivanlove

"Leftists operate as industrial elitists and only serves big business with their social programs that insure the subordination of an underclass of consumers to keep the capital and mythical progressivism on motion"?? What are you smoking?!! Actually, many Marxists revere both Illich and Fromm. We currently live in a world marred by global finance-capital impoverishing and destroying the well-being of millions for the mega-profits of a few, and industrial realities play a key role in the problem... as well as the solution: its time for workers to harness for themselves what they create and have created for their own benefit locally and internationally. I really don't think a proper reading of "Tools for Conviviality" condradicts this.

I must agree with Tod's review. This text is a life changing elixir. I am not a social science major or even a major for that matter, I simply enjoy reading non-fiction books that interest me. As soon is I read into the meat of the manifesto I was amazed by how it was effecting my thoughts on capitalism and industrialization. Although there are no solutions in this text, the truths exposed by Illich's platonic inquiries are mind blowing. I have not had the pleasure of reading many books that have rendered my condition topsy-turvy, but this simply removed the wool from my eyes in one fell swoop. It is interesting that Ivan Ilich is not mentioned in any context by the left of the US of A. This only fortifies my opinion that our leftists operate as industrial elitists and only serves big business with their social programs that insure the subordination of an underclass of consumers to keep the capital and mythical progressivism on motion. Sorry for the tangent. I was pleased to find a number of sites that do mention Ilich.

I can't say enough about the importance of this book. In short, Illich makes the point that there is a way in which the so-called "Third World" countries can avoid industrialization, and move directly into the post-industrialist state that the developed world is headed. There is no doubt in my mind that we will look back on this man's work sometime in the near future and realize how amazingly right he is. It is really a shame that he does not have more of an influence than he does. Some of the points in this book are so right that they seem impossible to refute or even question. I really can't even put into words the influence that the book has had on me. It is something everyone should read, and it's short enough that it can be done in a matter of a few hours. Please feel free to e-mail me and tell me what you thought of it, or of other works by this genius as I am going to work on trying to popularize and spread his ideas.

Being a second year medical student, the only text that my instructors seem to know about is Robbins. Robbins is a nice text I do admit, but I find it lacking in clarity and compact to the point of confusion. Anderson's (while I admit, comes in 2 volumes and weighs 20 pounds it seems) explains all! It fills in all the gaps (which I much admit are large) which Robbins creates. A nice feature of this text is an abundance of gross pictures, simple charts that list different tumor locations and their incidences, and the highlights of molecular biology without telling minutiae like the particular part of a chromosome arm that a gene is located on. I'm only getting started! In summary, if you're a pathology resident or medical student who wishes to clear a great mist of confusion surrounding pathology, then get this text! Not only will you learn pathology, but you'll increase your upper body strength carrying around this great tome!

The best medical pathology text in the market. It is a complete text that is unsurpassed for pathology. Although it is large it is easy reading inside and gives you a full understanding. If you want to learn medicine, read it!